our prayers, not just when we pray, or how we pray, or that for which we pray. It is important that we always are refining our minds, and our hearts, and our goals, and our aspirations, even in our prayer life. and the love of every one of you for one another. inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His might. When He comes on that day to be glorified in the saints, and to be marveled at, and where all Am I on now? Check? All right. So a few weeks back, we opened up 2 Thessalonians 1, and we began reflecting, as I said, on what I've called the framework, the framework of corporate prayer. And I use that analogy specifically and intentionally because it is important as we go into our, not only our individual time of prayer, but even specifically our corporate time of prayer, that we do have a rhyme and a reason, that we do have an intention and a purpose, and of course, The beautiful thing about being in Christ is that we could pray for whatever it is that our hearts desire. And then of course, one of the things or one of the mechanisms of prayer is that through prayer and through God's providence, the will of the Lord is revealed and that tempers and shapes and modifies our desires that we lift up to the Lord. But what was interesting and what Paul said here is what came out in verse 11. He says, to this end, To this end we always pray for you. Another way to say that is, with this in mind. So I thought, what is it that Paul had in mind as he always prays for the Thessalonians? And last time we saw that basically what he had in mind was signs of grace in the life of the Thessalonians. And there were three things, and I'm just going to say by review. Signs of grace. Number one, their faith was growing. So we're not talking about initial conversion here. We're talking about growth and forward movement, if you will, in their spiritual life. In other words, spiritual maturity. They're learning to trust the Lord more in times of trial and difficulty. They are learning to use the Word to orient their hope and their contentment. They are learning to depend, not on the mercy and grace of God from yesterday or from ten years ago, but on the fresh, new mercy and grace of God that He gives in that day. As Christians, we should, and I've said this a lot and I'll say it again, never depend on stale grace. We should never depend on stale mercy. As Jeremiah the prophet says, Lord, your mercies are new every what? Every morning. And it is our goal and our privilege and our duty to seek those new mercies out every day. So he thanks them that their faith is growing. And how is this relevant for our prayer lives? Well, I said last time that if we, like Paul, listen to me very carefully, are going to thank God for signs of grace, specifically that their faith is growing, what do we need to do? We need to get into the lives of one another and say, hey, is your faith growing? How is it growing? And how can I specifically praise God and give thanksgiving to Him for how your faith is growing? So this involves, listen to me very carefully, this involves a strategic approach to fellowship. Okay? A strategic approach to fellowship. I know how it is. I've been in the church a long time, and I know that, you know, before church, and certainly after church, after the benediction falls on the people of God, it's kind of like, okay, play ball, you know? It's like, we've sung the national anthem, now let's go and let's talk to one another, and there's so many of us in this church that just love that. We just love to engage with one another, and that's wonderful, but oftentimes our engagement is rather shallow, And, you know, I understand that. I mean, there's certain people that you're just getting to know, and certainly you've got to warm up to getting to the good stuff, if you will, but it should be our goal as members, as Christians, to be moving towards spiritual conversations with people such that We can learn of those signs of grace in their life where their faith is growing. And as I said a few weeks back, be encouraged by it ourselves, and then secondly, give thanks to the Lord. So that was one way that Paul was looking for signs of grace, that their faith was growing. But another one, that their love was increasing. Verse 3b, their love was increasing. We saw from Jesus' words some weeks back that they will know we are Christians by our love. And I wish we could say that was the case all the time. My professor, when I was in seminary, he gave a talk at lunchtime. Sometimes they would give, the professors would give talks at lunchtime. And we always went because there was free pizza. But he gave a talk and it was, Why Are Reform People Such Jerks? And the irony of it is, the irony of it was, he was the biggest jerk on campus. And so it was very interesting to hear from this guy why Reformed people were such jerks. But he really hit it right on the head. And Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 13, what does knowledge do? It puffs up. It puffs up. And I love the Reformed faith. J. Gresham Machen was famous for saying, I love the Reformed faith. Isn't it grand? And all this kind of stuff. And I love it. It's beautiful. It's symmetrical. It's balanced. It's consistent. But man, that can really puff up your pride. And so I think that one of the things we need to fight against is pride. And one of the ways that that pride manifests itself is in the context of our churches, we get into these theological debates or disagreements or whatever, and we have beef with one another, but our love needs to be growing. And Paul gives thanks to the Lord that the Thessalonians' love was growing. But a third way that he saw signs of grace is in verse 4, and that is that they were persevering under trials. And as I said last week, I won't rehash all this, It's one thing for God to put you in a trial, and all of us have been in a trial of some sort or another. It's another thing to pass through your trial well, right? I've been through a number of trials in my life, and maybe compared to some of you, they're not that big of a deal. For me, at least in the moment, they were a big deal. But I could say, with shame on my face, that there are some trials that I just not handle very well. I handled them very poorly. And I'm ashamed of that. But one of the things that we should be striving for is not just to get through the trial, not just to persevere and white-knuckle it and make it through, but to do it well such that, let me say this, I would submit to you a mark of spiritual maturity. Listen to this, this might blow your mind. A mark of spiritual maturity is when a person is at the beginning of their trial, They have no idea which way it's going to go. It may go south, it may go north, it may go crazy. They don't know where it's going to go, they're anxious, they're worrying, but they have the spiritual maturity and enough foresight and, listen, trust in the sovereignty of God at the beginning of that trial to say, Thank you, because you're going to do something in my life through this trial. You're going to do something in the life of people around me. You're going to hone me. You're going to shape me. You're going to carve off those rough edges in some way, shape, or form. And God, I know it's going to be tough, and I just ask that you be gentle, but thank you, Lord. And I want to pass through this trial well. I want people to look from the outside in and say, what an amazing God that man has. What an amazing God that woman has, that they would cling with such tenacity to Him, even though He is bringing them through this trial. And you know, one of the promises, we're big on promises here, if you're not, you should be, one of the promises that I constantly run back to when God is putting me through a trial is 1 Corinthians 10, 13, and 14. And if you haven't memorized this, I encourage you to memorize it. Because if you haven't had a trial, you were just born, and that was a trial. But you will have a trial. And here's a promise. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation will also provide a way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry." You know what some of us, or all of us, need to do when we're coming into a trial? We need to put this before, and I'm speaking anthropomorphically here, put this before God's face and say, God, this is what you said. You said that You will not put me through something that I can't handle, so I'm looking, Father. I'm looking for the ways of escape. Show them to me because I don't want to dishonor Your name. I don't want to bring shame to me, to my family, to my church, to Christianity. I want Christ's name to be glorified through this trial, and right now it's looking grim. So, I'm calling you on this promise. Remember, you said this. This is a promise that you gave, so make it happen. Is that bold? That's what Moses did. That's what the psalmists do. You know what they're doing? That's what Habakkuk did. You know what they're doing? They're wrestling with God. And they're saying, God, this is a promise. Show it to me in my life. So memorize this promise. I want you to notice something. I want you to notice the cause and effect in these two verses. No temptation to seize you. He's going to provide a way out. And he says in verse 14, Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. That covers just about everything. Since God will not allow you to be tempted beyond your ability, but will provide a way of escape so that you may be able to endure it, flee the temptation to grab onto something else to get you through it. We do that sometimes, don't we? Maybe we grab onto the bottle, maybe we grab onto entertainment, and we just numb ourselves, right? We just take ourselves out of the game. You know, if I don't have to deal with it, if I don't have to think about it, then it's not going to afflict me. I don't know what your idolatry is. We all have our own pet idols. But what this promise is telling us is that the effect should be that we should run away from that idolatry and run to the promises and have dealings with God. So this is just all review, this is the framework, but now I want you to consider a second thing that Paul had in mind as he lifted up his prayers to the Lord. And I want you to notice this in verse 4 and 5. We're going to look at confidence in the prospect of vindication. I want you to notice the endurance of the Thessalonians is evidence of their worthiness to enter the kingdom of God. Look at verse 4 and 5. Paul says, therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness. Can I just stop there? Here is an example of the Apostle Paul, an inspired example of the Apostle boasting about somebody in the church. Is it okay to boast about somebody in the church? Absolutely. You boast about people's faith. That's what Paul's doing. In fact, he had it recorded and now for 2,000 years Christians have been reading how Paul is boasting about people in the church. And faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring, this is evidence of the righteous judgment of God that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which you are also suffering. Now, I want to make something entirely clear here, and it's probably a question that some of you might have. Some of you might be asking, is Paul saying here that by my enduring persecution and affliction, that makes me worthy to enter the Kingdom of God, as if it were somehow the ground of my acceptance to enter into the Kingdom of God? Well, no, that's not what Paul's saying. In fact, he uses the word evidence right there in the first three letters or words of verse 5. Bearing up under the affliction and persecution of people who oppose us is not the ground of our worthiness to get into the kingdom of heaven, but it is evidence, in other words, perseverance is the evidence of their right to enter the kingdom, the reason for which they are counted worthy to enter that kingdom. Okay, so beyond our conversion, Paul assumes, listen to me very carefully, that real Christians will ultimately persevere. We see this all throughout Scripture. And I would say this, Christians may stumble and fall and doubt like Thomas, and they may disown their Lord like Peter, but they ultimately will utter their Amen to Thomas' confession. Remember his confession? My Lord and my God. and they will utter their amen and contribute their weeping with Peter. That's what true Christians will do. So, you know, Peter's example always blows my mind. You know, sometimes we, I don't know if you ever have this conversation, but like, what's the worst thing a Christian can do? I'll tell you what, I think the worst thing a Christian can do is disown their Lord. I think that's worse than, I think it's worse than murder, honestly. I think it's worse than adultery, I think it's worse than just about anything. And yet, God's grace is so broad, and so deep, and so wide, that somebody can come back from that if they repent and turn again in faith. And so Christians may stumble and fall in doubt like Thomas and disown their Lord like Peter, but they will ultimately utter their Amen to Thomas' confession and weep with Peter. But now I want to draw out two themes here very quickly before we move on to the latter part of Paul's admonition here. Two things, Kingdom of God and their perseverance. And the first thing I want you to note about this Kingdom of God that he's talking about, and it's very clear in the text, When we talk about the Kingdom of God, there's two ways in which we talk about the Kingdom of God. Does anybody want to remind me of what they are? The something and the something. The already and the... Not yet, okay? So when Christ came, the King of God broke in, but it's not the full package. The full package is consummation, where Christ is reigning with his scepter at the right hand of the Father, and there is no opposition, there is no war, all his enemies have been put under his feet, and the new heavens and the new earth have burst upon the scene. That's what Paul's talking about here. He's talking about that kind of Kingdom of God. And secondly, the perseverance displayed by the Thessalonians in working toward this Kingdom of God, if I could put it that way, as they suffer and endure affliction on their way to the Kingdom of God, this perseverance is not for nothing, if I could be grammatically incorrect. In other words, we're not just suffering for suffering's sake, as if we were some masochist. They're like, oh, suffering purifies the soul, and Buddhism talks about that. No! If I don't have to suffer, I don't want to suffer! That's stupid! Now our suffering is with a purpose, and that purpose is that we enter into the kingdom of God when Christ breaks through the clouds. This is what drives everything in our lives. It drives our hopes, it drives our dreams, it drives our contentment, it drives our pleasure, it drives how we deal with disappointment, it drives how we deal with Heartache. It drives how we deal with opposition. The breaking through of the final Kingdom of God puts all things into perspective. And therefore, when I suffer for that purpose, I'm constantly telling myself, it's worth it. It's worth it. It's worth it. Because one day, Christ is going to break through those clouds, and we will be vindicated. And that's exactly what Paul gets at. So with these two things in mind, the Kingdom of God and persevering, I want you to consider two more things. For believers, there will be vindication. Look at verse 6. He said, since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us when, Paul, in the now time, no, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels and flaming fire inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might when He comes on that day to be glorified in the saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed because our testimony to you was believed. You know what Paul's doing here? He's pushing the eschatological ethic, the end-time ethic. What I mean by that is our hope in the end is what drives our ethic now. Our hope for the end is what drives our willingness and our motivation and our desire to suffer, to endure affliction and opposition. That's why we love His appearing. There are 10,000 reasons why we love His appearing, but that is the most important one. You know what it is? It's vindication. You know what vindication means? An open clearing of the guilty. Vindication means to show to be right. I don't know about you, but I've lost count. I've lost count of the times that non-believers have mocked me and made fun of me and ridiculed my faith. And you know, a lot of that was me going looking for it because I strapped on the armor of God and I went to evangelize. And when you go into evangelism circumstances, it's literally a war, it's a war zone. It's a war zone. And what you should expect is for people to mock and jeer your faith. But in those contexts, people say and do some pretty awful things. But that's us Western Americans. I mean, what's the worst that's ever happened? Have you ever been punched in the face for sharing the gospel? I haven't. Maybe you have. I haven't. I've been made fun of. I've been ridiculed. But you know, there are other brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the world who have had much more taken away from them than their reputations. They've had their jobs, their family members, limbs, even their own lives taken away from them. And you know what they want to know at the end of their pilgrimage is the answer to one question, and that question is this, was it worth it? Was it worth it? And that's what vindication is. Vindication will be an open declaration by Jesus Christ himself that it was worth it. So this is the eschatological ethic. But not only will there be vindication for us who are believers, But for non-believers, there will be retribution. We saw that in verses six through 10. Pastor or Chaplain Joe talked about it this morning. I'm so grateful. He really said a lot of the things that I was gonna say tonight, so I'll be short. But I think sometimes in a culture of tolerance, we blush at the idea that God will come back and judge all of our enemies. Have you ever done that? We feel like we're being mean, right? We feel like we're being mean, but here's what we need to remember when we read verses like this. All of God's attributes are to be declared and rejoiced in. Let me say that again. All of God's attributes are to be declared and rejoiced in. We celebrate His love, we celebrate His mercy, we celebrate His grace and forgiveness, and we should, those are wonderful attributes, but God is just, Just as much as he is loving and forgiving and merciful, anticipating the retribution that God will bring on the last day, you know what it does? It actually helps us to know what to do with senseless acts of violence and oppression. I mean, think about that for a second. If you don't have a just God in your worldview, and something senseless happens, like a few weeks ago in this shooting in Virginia Beach, you don't have a category for that, right? You're just like, well, crazy things happen. Bad things happen, and I don't know why, I don't have an answer for why they happen, and I don't know that there's ever going to be any justice. I mean, those people who did that may die, and they may never suffer any punishment beyond that. So, there's just an abortion or a dereliction of justice in the world if you don't have a God of justice. But with a Christian worldview, we know that those actions will be answered, the scales will be balanced, the wicked will be punished, and God will be glorified. Sometimes, God brings temporal judgment to wicked people through the sword of the state, but that doesn't always happen. And furthermore, the punishment doesn't always fit the crime, and there is, as I said, a dereliction of justice, but not so with God. God is not only storing up all of our tears in His bottle, He's got them in His book, but He's also storing up every wicked action of every wicked man and woman, and they will have to give an account on the last day. And when they don't, when they don't have a lawyer, when they don't have an advocate, when they don't have the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ to cause them to stand and to cover their sins, then God will pour out His unmitigated wrath upon them forever. And it's right here in the text. I mean, sometimes I think we think, well, you know, that's kind of eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, you know, but that's Old Testament stuff. It's right here in the New Testament. Right here in the New Testament, eternal, unending wrath. But I think what we need to remember is that the cross is a sign of both retribution and love. This is where we have to have a biblical view of the cross so, listen, we can understand where wrath fits into the gospel. It is the world that focuses only on the attributes of God that they like. They focus on love, they focus on mercy, they focus on forgiveness and compassion, and then they can't square in their minds why a good God would send anyone to hell. They don't understand the cross. Let me say this as clearly and concisely as I know how. If God were only a God of love, then the cross would have never been necessary. The cross would have never been necessary. If God could just sweep sins under the rug and forget about it, then Jesus never needed to become a man, live a perfect life under the law and pay for the sins of his people. You see, what the gospel of Jesus Christ does, listen, is explains how God could be a God of love and forgiveness and a God of justice. It explains how God could be the justifier, the one who justifies us, and yet still be just. You want to know why? Because mercy and love and forgiveness and eternal life are not free. Somebody had to pay for them. We often, as Christians, talk about, oh, free mercy and free grace, and it is for us. But see, we've so been talking the lingo, the biblical lingo, for so long that I think we often forget somebody had to pay the punishment for my sins. Somebody had to live that perfect life. And that perfect life was lived by Jesus Christ. And because He lived that perfect life, and because He went to that cross and died that sinner's death, God can be the one who justifies through those who have faith in Him, and God can still be just because somebody got His wrath. Somebody got His wrath. And so now, those who would escape his wrath can't escape it through repentance and faith. But on the other hand, if we don't, if people say, no, I'll have nothing of it, I want to do things my way, then they have hell. And it's a sad thing. And just let me remind you, hell is not a place, beloved, hell is not a place where people are screaming for another chance to repent. Just give me one more chance, and if I lived another day on earth, I would bow to Jesus Christ, oh please forgive me, just give... No. With every hot breath that they breathe in hell, they are blaspheming the name of God. They hate Him. They hate Him. And they would rather burn in hell forever, as miserable as it is, than bow the knee to the Savior. That's why they deserve to be there. And you know what's interesting? How does Paul describe those who will suffer eternally in hell? It's very interesting. He says in verse 8, they do not obey the gospel. What does it mean to obey the gospel? Trust and belief. That's it. Turn from your sins and trust and believe in Jesus Christ. So do we have a holistic view of the King of God in our living and in our prayers? Do we long and even faint for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ? While it's fine and appropriate for us to pray for justice in this world, we ought also to pray for the coming of Jesus Christ where all will be made right. We must be oriented toward the end. To the degree that we are oriented to the end, the siren songs of this world will never be able to lure us away from the glorious reward we have waiting for us when Christ breaks through the clouds. So do you love his appearing this evening? Do you long for justice? Let's enter into prayer now and lift up our thanksgivings and petitions to the triune God and let him know.